October 14th, 2006
driftwood
Second post for today. In an hour or two, we’ll be packing up our stuff for the last time as we leave California and head north for the final leg of our journey before returning home next week.
Yesterday, Lynne commented that the driftwood in one of my photos looked quite large. During our travels, we’ve seen some immense pieces of drifted wood – huge logs and stumps. I’ve been photographing drift all along the coast — both the sculptural and textural aspects of the wood. It is truly amazing to see how much wood is piled up in some of the coves here in the PNW.
Oh, and that’s me standing next to a drifted redwood stump found along one of the beaches a few days ago.
Tags: driftwood
October 14th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
WOW- can’t bring that one home for garden sculpture!
(thanks for the link!)
October 15th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Yes, that’s a very large ornament! Not even our largest trees come close, but maybe in 100 years. I shall put it in my journal so I can remember to check.
What pink cheeks you have, Bev – the Northwest Pacific climate must be agreeing with you!
October 15th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
All the more astonishing that it appears the tree was cut down with a saw. Big job!
October 15th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Now that really makes me homesick! I really miss redwood trees. Have you ever been to the Sierra Nevadas and hiked in to see the Giant Sequoias? Truly awe-inspiring trees. That stump is really magnificent. I wonder how old the tree was when it was cut down. Those old-bone driftwoods stumps still project incredible presence, like the bones of whales.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Lynne – Nope, definitely not a suitable piece of driftwood for a garden ornament!
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Wayne – Yes, it’s a very large stump. Can’t even begin to imagine the age of such a large redwood. As for my pink cheeks – yes, the PNW climate does seem to agree with me. It’s been so cold since I arrived home that I’m almost wishing I was back out on the west coast! (-:
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pablo – I don’t know a lot about how trees were cut down in the old days, but from what I understand, they were chopped with an axe at first and then sawn through the last part. The choppers stood on springboards stuck into notched chopped into the trunk. But yes, it was a big job to cut down a tree. Kind of amazing how, with fairly low technology, men managed to chop down such huge tracts of the redwoods in the west.
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robin – I’ve been missing the redwoods for a few years now, so it was great to be back among them. Don had never seen them before, so it was a treat to take him to around to some groves. I have not been to the Sierra Nevadas, but my travel companion was telling me about the Giant Sequoias and how I must get there to see them someday. Perhaps next trip to CA (here I am, already imagining my “next trip” already!! I don’t know about the age of that tree, but compared to other trees which I saw that had age estimates, I wonder if that one might have been about 1,500 (or more) years old? And yes, those old-bone driftwood stumps have such a feel to them. They are magnificent even as driftwood.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
There’s two reasons to chop down trees – one is for the tree itself of course, and the other is to clear land (and I’m talking about 18th-19th century here, not now).
Annie Dillard, in her “The Living”, describes how land was cleared of huge trees in 19th century northwest. Not that I approve in general but the technique fascinated me.
The pioneers would approach with axe and brute force and take days to fell a huge tree.
Our protagonist, who listened to native Americans, drilled a little tunnel horizontally at the bottom of the tree. Then he drilled another, above that one, slantwise down until it met the first tunnel toward the center of the tree. Then he stuffed some combustibles into the first tunnel and lit it afire. The second tunnel acted as a chimney. Within a day that section of the tree had burned through and the tree fell.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Wayne – I think a technique similar to that may have been used in this area at times, or at least I’ve heard of burning out large stumps when trees were being cleared off of future farmland. I know of a couple of local places where one can still find the remains of huge stumps that seem to be burned inside – c. late 19th C.